Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs - When and Why to Use Each After week one I shared my thoughts about “What Google+ Means for Education.” I’m on week two now and the big questions are: Do I really need to join another social network? Answer: Yes.If I join Google+ can I give up Facebook, Twitter, and blogs? TwitterTwitter has some important advantages over the other social media contenders. Mobile useHands down, Twitter is the mobile app winner. Of all the social media platforms, Google+ seems to me, to be the best platform for having a conversation. You can select / target who is seeing your comment.
40 Google Plus Tips for Newbies Ok, so at this point, we are all newbies at Google Plus, right? At least if you got in recently via a Google Plus invite. At this point I’ve spent a decent amount of time with it and have concluded that Google has finally made a positive mark in social networking. It’s still early, but there is a lot of excitement around Google+ by those who have jumped on early, and for good reason. 40 Google Plus Tips for Newbies Last Updated August 18th, 2011: Replaced tip #22 (old) with a fresh resource on changes on Google plus. July 20, 2011: Added a video in the advanced tips section informing readers how to share a link on Google Plus as their currently isn’t an easy way for website owners to offer that option for readers. *A word about updates to this post. [/unordered_list] [/toggle] Friends First thing you’ll likely want to do is add some friends right? Tip #1: Adding Friends from Suggestions. Tip #2: Adding Friends from Yahoo Mail. Tip #3: Adding Friends from Hotmail. Tip #4: Blocking Friends.
3 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During Presentations Coming as I do from a background in language teaching that emphasises that the teacher should shut up and get the students to do the talking, I often feel uncomfortable doing conference presentations, many of which still follow the format of; speaker gets up in front of audience with presentation - does presentation - audience listen (try to stay awake) and desperately try to think of a few questions at the end to prove they were awake and listening. One of the gifted- Jamie Keddie. There are of course a few gifted speakers who can hold the audience’s attention for a full hour and keep most of them listening and awake. If like me you’re not one of those, then here are a few tools that, thanks to the increasing availability of wireless connectivity at conference centres these days, might help to turn your passive listeners into a bunch of multitasking audience collaborators. Set up a backchannelOne of my favourite tools to use during presentations is Today’sMeet .
PLN: Your Personal Learning Network Made Easy | Once a Teacher.... What is a PLN? If I had to define what a ‘Personal Learning Network’ is, I would keep it simple and broad: n. – the entire collection of people with whom you engage and exchange information, usually online. Personal Learning Networks, or PLNs, have been around forever. PLNs have immense value! So, why bother thinking about your PLN? Here are some ways that educators are using their PLNs: - Professional development – learn from content-area specialists - Locate resources for your classroom, such as free websites and software - Get lesson plan ideas from master teachers - Learn about new technology and how to integrate it into your teaching - Find collaborative solutions - Find interesting links to education news Students can also reap the benefits of tapping into their PLNs. When you have a large group of people combing through vast amounts of information and collectively identifying the most useful, entertaining, or valuable parts, it only makes sense to tap into this collective knowledge!
Peer Learning Handbook | Peeragogy.org What Does Google+ Mean for Education I became a Google+ user this week and I like it. From what I can tell it lets you do pretty much everything Facebook lets you do with some bonuses including being able to edit your status updates and comments and that you can select who the feed goes to via the circle(s) in which you share your updates. The circles I'm using are colleagues, co-workers, GTA, friends, family, volleyball. The status updates still don't have a feature which I really want: nesting of comments. Is that really so hard??? It does let you tag people in your status which I find useful. Another cool feature is hanging out. What if students were empowered to lead hang out discussions and if necessary the teacher could move from discussion to discussion. Top 3 things I like. 1-You can edit your posts 2-You can hit return without the comment posting itself 3-You can still tag people Top 3 things I love 1-You can select who sees your message. 4) Visit Larry Ferlazzo's round up of Google+ resources here.
The 6 Ways Teachers Want To Change Schools The results of the recently released MetLife Survey of the American Teacher weren’t surprising to many teachers, as it chronicled a steep decline in teacher job satisfaction. In fact, teachers’ job satisfaction is at its lowest level since 1987. Of the 1,000 teachers polled, only 39 percent claimed they were “very satisfied” with their profession. It is clear from the survey that American teachers are concerned with the state of their profession but more troubling to us, they are not being given a voice in school reform or educational initiatives–decisions usually made by people far removed from local school districts. So, what do teachers want? We set out to conduct our own poll of educators and we asked only a single simple question: How would you improve the educational experience of your students? Smaller Class Sizes A desire for smaller class sizes dominated the responses we received. Unfortunately, we know that in many school districts class sizes continue to get larger. More Books
How to Create a Robust and Meaningful Personal Learning Network [PLN] This post describes how educators can develop a personal learning network that supports meaningful and relevant learning. The MOOC, Education Technology & Media, etmooc, is used here as a working example of how to develop a PLN. “My Personal Learning Network is the key to keeping me up-to-date with all the changes that are happening in education and how technology can best support and engage today’s students.” Brian Metcalfe: teacher, blogger at lifelonglearners.com A visual image of participants in an open, online course- etmooc, which shows the potential to find and create personal connections as part of one’s PLN. I wrote a post recently about how to develop a personal learning environment [PLE], the need and benefits of doing so, for educators in particular. What is a PLN? Twitter 6×6 (Photo credit: Steve Woolf) Logo for etmooc from etmooc.org In the etmooc we are primarily using Google+ Community , Blackboard Collaborate and Twitter to interact. Resources Like this: Like Loading...
English360 Humanizing adaptive learning for ELT Part 1: Knewton, adaptive learning, and ELT Part 2: Open platforms and teacher-driven adaptive learning The debate over adaptive learning at eltjam, Philip Kerr’s blog, and Nicola Prentis’ Simple English has been both fascinating and instructive, not only due to the posts but also the great dialogue in the comments. It’s a fun topic because it involves our core beliefs regarding language acquisition, effective teaching, and the roles that technology can play. That said, I can’t help but feel that in some respects we’re thinking about adaptive learning in a limited way, and that this limited perspective, combined with Knewton confusion, is distorting how we approach the topic, making it into a bigger deal than it really is. Adaptive learning in contextI wrote “adaptive learning” in scare quotes above because I think the name itself is misleading. Now, good teachers have been adapting to our students for how long…millennia? Thoughts on IATEFL Liverpool:
20 Tips for Creating a Professional Learning Network - Getting Smart by Miriam Clifford “20 Tips for Creating a Professional Learning Network” by Miriam Clifford first appeared on the InfomED blog. Networking is a prime form of 21st century learning. The world is much smaller thanks to technology. Learning is transforming into a globally collaborative enterprise. Take for example scientists; professional networks allow the scientific community to share discoveries much faster. Just this month, a tech news article showcased how Harvard scientists are considering that “sharing discoveries is more efficient and honorable than patenting them.” As educators, we aim to be connected to advance our craft. Learning networks are based on the theory of connectivism, or learning from diverse social webs. What are some ways to grow your PLN and improve the quality of your interactions? 10 Tips For Using PLN’s Keep the spirit of collaboration as your driving force. 10 Tools & Strategies for Establishing a Productive PLN Use Diigo, Evernote, Pocket, or Delicious to bookmark links.